The great honour, which the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies has done me in entrusting me with this first ‘M. V. Taylor Memorial Lecture’, is the last, not the least, benefit for which I am indebted to our venerable and most regretted friend. I do not think it is my duty, indeed I think it would be very improper for me to set about reminding you here of who she was and what she did. I suppose I am expected to try to dedicate to her memory a paper which would not be too unworthy of her. I shall try to do my best. But I must confess at once that I am not quite sure that my subject is one of those she would have entirely approved of. Not that she had confined herself to Roman Britain. Of course I am sorry not to be able to present her today with a new enameled patera enumerating all the forts of the Wall, like the Amiens patera which, fifteen years ago, inspired her benevolence towards me. I am sorry not to be able to guide her through the halls of the Baths of Cluny, as I had the pleasure of doing in September, 1963, when she came to Paris for the last time on the occasion of the Archaeological Congress. I know her range of curiosity and learning was limitless indeed. Only I wonder whether Etruscan matters would not have raised in her a sort of smiling and sceptical reluctance, as something which is not altogether serious. I might plead, with Professor Momigliano's authority, that the Emperor Claudius, though the father of these queer researches, did something after all for Roman Britain. Still, as I cannot help imagining Miss Taylor sitting here in the front of my audience, I shall be exceptionally careful not to say anything which could arouse her sometimes passionate severity. If I fail, as is probable, I appeal in advance to her, and your, indulgence.

‘The sovereign power of the dictator, the imperium, was … an unrestricted regal power, taken over ca. 504 B.C. by the 300 horsemen of the noblemen-bodyguard, who constituted then the patriciate, i.e. the closed circle of the potential holders of the imperium’. This is a quotation from A. Alföldi's latest book, Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor), 1965, p. 44, and summarizes his theory of the origins of the Roman Republic. According to Alföldi the aristocracy of the monarchic period was an aristocracy of knights, and their coup d'état of about 504 B.C. brought about the end of the monarchy. As is well known, Alföldi developed this theory in a previous book, Der frührömische Reiteradel und seine Ehrenabzeichen (Baden-Baden, 1952) which is chiefly meant to prove that the various attributes of the senatorial order—including the special shoe for the patrician senators, the calceus patricius—were originally characteristic of the archaic knights. To the best of my knowledge, Alföldi never says explicitly that the senators of the monarchic period must have been identical with the 300 ‘celeres’ who were the king's bodyguard according to some of the ancient sources (Livy 1, 15, 8; Plut., Rom. 26; Zonaras 7, 3, 4). But this seems to be Alföldi's implication—in fact it was already Niebuhr's hypothesis.

It has long been recognized that Macrobius' Saturnalia and Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis are no less important as social documents of their times than for the precious antiquarian and neoplatonic lore they preserve. But which times ? And who was Macrobius ?

In view of our relatively abundant prosopographical material from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, there should be a fair chance of identifying a man whose full name and rank stand on record: Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, vir clarissimus et inlustris.

In writing a book on Epirus which is in the press I omitted a full description of the battle of the Aoi Stena and of the campaigns in which it is set partly because it involves areas outside Epirus and partly because I had not space for such a description. My travels in Albania included the traversing of the higher ground just east of the Myzeqija plain (see Map II) and the crossing by ferry of the three great rivers, the Genusus (Shkumbi), the Apsus (Semeni) and the Aous (Vijosë), in late March and early April 1931. At that time these rivers were in spate, and the upper parts of the plain were full of sheep, enjoying the spring pastures before moving up to the summer pastures of the mountains. I went from Durazzo (Dyrrachium) up the Shkumbi valley to Elbasan, inspected some sites on the south side of the valley, walked through the low sink which separates the Shkumbi from the Devoli SSW. of Elbasan, and then visited Berat (Antipatrea). On other occasions I walked through the hill country southwards of Berat to Byllis and to Han Qesarat (Map I) in the middle Vijosë valley. In other years I explored the lower Vijosë valley as far as Apollonia, walked through the Aoi Stena and traversed the Vijosë valley from Kelcyrë to Konitsa and the whole length of the Drin valley. The course of these and other travels I have made is shown on Map I. Acquaintance with this terrain has enabled me, I think, to present a new interpretation of parts of Philip's campaigns and of the battle of the Aoi Stena; new in the sense that it is different from those of Kromayer and De Sanctis, who did not visit this area. The paper falls into the following parts: A, a geographical description; B, the campaigns of 200 and 199 B.C. in as far as they concern this area; C, the campaign of 198 B.C. An appendix, dealing with some topographical points, is added.

In the year 13 of our era C. Silius and L. Munatius Plancus held the fasces, known characters. But the inscribed record presents a double and intricate problem. First, nomenclature. Is Silius by his full and proper style to be registered as ‘C. Silius Caecina Largus’ ? Second, was there also a consul suffect—and was there perhaps another suffectus or a pair of suffecti ?

That Silius was polyonymous, Borghesi claimed, and so did Mommsen. The persuasion obtained in the standard works of reference. Recently, however, a firm and reasoned negation was issued. It seemed cogent. None the less, it failed to win the assent of the scholar whose authority stands paramount in this field. And somebody else has essayed a refutation, reinstating ‘C. Silius Caecina Largus’. It is expedient to look into the matter again. That can be done briefly, thanks to the arguments already adduced—and no fresh evidence accrues.

The belief is widespread that the majority of Plutarch's works was written after the death of Domitian in 96, when the author was a comparatively old man. So far, however, the foundations for this belief have not been firmly laid. The latest study of Plutarchean chronology, that of Ziegler, omits much, and new evidence is constantly accruing. The following study is an attempt to make use of all the material now available that bears on the dating of Plutarch's works. It cannot be definitive: there may be omissions, certain problems (such as that of Plutarch's marriage and the number of his children) appear insoluble, and new data, particularly new inscriptions, that affect the question are sure to turn up.

In a recent article Mr. Fergus Millar has propounded the hypothesis that in the first two centuries of the Principate the term ‘fiscus’ always refers to the emperor's private wealth and is indistinguishable from such terms as ‘res familiaris’. In support of this view he has collected a great mass of useful material where the term ‘fiscus’ is actually used. Some of this evidence undoubtedly accords very well with his contention, and indeed no one can reasonably deny that the term is often employed in the sense stated. But many other texts which he cites only fortify his thesis if what he seeks to prove is already assumed, and can readily be interpreted in accordance with the view that ‘fiscus’ has more than one meaning. In my judgment he has failed to disprove Professor A. H. M. Jones' theory that ‘fiscus’ has diverse senses: it may mean

(1) in the Republic the private funds of an individual;

(2) in the Principate the private funds of the emperor ;

(3) in both the Republic and the Principate a chest, provincial or departmental, containing public monies ;

(4) in Jones' words, ‘the whole financial administration controlled by the emperor’ ; hence to say that property or income was fiscal may simply denote that it was under the emperor's administration and control, whether in strict law it was owned by the emperor in his private capacity or by the res publica. In this sense we may call the ‘fiscus’ the imperial treasury, without implying that it was ever a single chest in which coin or bullion was kept.

ὁ δὲ Σεβῆρος … διοικήσας δὲ τὰ κατὰ Βρετανίαν καì

διελὼν ἐς δύο ἡγεμονίας τὴν τοῦ ἔθνους ἐξουσίαν….

Thus Herodian (III, 8, 1–2), referring to the time after the Battle of Lugdunum in 197. It is a sign of our imperfect knowledge of the history of Roman Britain that the character of this division, its purpose and even its date, are all matters of doubt. Not only is there no evidence to confirm Herodian's statement until a considerably later period, but there are several contrary indications which suggest that his date, at least, is wrong. Such a conflict of ancient testimony leads, not surprisingly, to differences in modern authorities. It is not necessary, however, for it to lead to such a confusing picture as they now seem to present. Ritterling and E. Birley drew attention to the problem, and S. N. Miller set out all the evidence in the Cambridge Ancient History. It therefore seems unfortunate that eminent authorities in more recent works continue to accept Herodian's date, or, more rarely, offer an alternative, without any warning that they are handling dubious or hypothetical material. My aim in this paper is, therefore, partly one of clarification and restatement. But I also wish to draw attention to a small addition to the evidence on the subject, and to treat the whole problem anew in the light of recent additions to our knowledge of Roman Britain in Severan times. Until a fortunate epigraphic discovery solves the problem for us, all such discussions are bound to be inconclusive; but while we wait for a British Julius Cerealis, an interim statement may crave a hearing.

It was in January or February of 54 B.C., to judge by his brother's extant letters, that Quintus Cicero left for Gaul to serve as a legatus in Caesar's army. By June he was already wondering whether or not to return. Cicero urbanely replied to him late in July (QF II, 15. 2–3):

‘Verum attende nunc, mi optime et suavissime frater, ad ea dum rescribo quae tu in hac eadem brevi epistula πραγματικѽς valde scripsisti. De quo petis ut ad te nihil occultans, nihil dissimulans, nihil tibi indulgens ingenue fraterneque rescribam, id est, utrum <ad>voles, ut dixeramus, <an> ad expediendum te, si causa sit, commorere. Si, mi Quinte, parva aliqua res esset in qua sciscitarere quid vellem, tamen, cum tibi permissurus essem ut faceres quod velles, ego ipse quid vellem ostenderem; in hac vero re hoc profecto quaeris, cuius modi illum annum qui sequitur exspectem. Plane aut tranquillum nobis aut certe munitissimum … [he goes on to refer to his own popularity, the gratia of Caesar and Pompey, and Clodius' powerlessness] … Haec ita sentio, iudico, ad te explorate scribo; dubitare te non adsentatorie sed fraterne veto. Qua re suavitatem equidem nostrae fruendae causa cuperem te ad id tempus venire quod dixeras, sed illud malo tamen quod putas magis e 〈re〉 tua; illa enim magni aestimo, ἀμφιλαφίαν illam tuam et explicationem debitorum tuorum …’

In the past five years there have appeared a number of collections of inscriptions relevant to Roman studies and a number of collected discussions of such inscriptions, and it may be useful to record the more important of these, though without comment except where the titles are insufficiently indicative of content, for they have been, or will be, the subject of reviews. Regional corpora: G. Mihailov, Inscriptiones graecae in Bulgaria repertae vol. III, fasc. 1, giving texts from Philippopolis (1961); G. Sotgiù, Iscrizioni latine della Sardegna (1961); W. M. Calder and J. M. R. Cormack, MAMA VIII, giving texts from Lycaonia, the Pisido-Phrygian borderland and Aphrodisias (1962); A. Degrassi, ILLRP vol. 11 (1963); A. and J. Šašel, Inscriptiones latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMXL et MCMLX repertae sunt (1963); P. Wuilleumier, Inscriptions latines des Trois Gaules (1963); R. G. Collingwood and R. P. Wright, Roman Inscriptions of Britain vol. I (1965). Specialised corpora: H. Zilliacus, Sylloge inscriptionum Christianarum veterum Musei Vaticani (1963); A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae vol. XIII, fasc. 2, Fasti anni Numani et Iuliani, Ferialia, Menologia Rustica, Parapegmata (1965); M. H. Callander, Roman Amphorae, with an index of stamps on amphorae in the Western provinces (1965). Corpora of illustrations: A. Degrassi, ILLRP, Imagines (1965); A. E. and J. S. Gordon, Album of dated Latin inscriptions from Rome and the neighbourhood, vols. II (A.D. 100–199) and III (A.D. 200–525) (1965). Collected discussions: Akte des IV. Kongress für Epigraphik, Vienna 1962; A. Degrassi, Scritti vari di antichità (1962); L. Robert, Hellenica XI-XII (1960) and XIII (1965), the latter wholly devoted to a review of MAMA VIII; a second edition of his Villes d'Asie Mineure (1962) and Noms indigènes dans l'Asie-Mineure gréco-romaine (1963). One might also mention here H. G. Pflaum's Les Carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le haut-empire romain (1960) and the Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae from 1963 onwards, largely devoted to epigraphic studies.

The discovery of an oak board from the box-rim of a de-watering device at the Dolaucothi mine is reported by O. Davies in Arch. Camb. XCI (1936), 51–7. An examination of the specimen, which is in the National Museum of Wales, in the light of parallels from the Iberian peninsula and elsewhere led to the accompanying attempt at a reconstruction of the original design. The Dolaucothi wheel is the only British representative of its type, and, curiously enough, the surviving board is the only definitely Roman object ever recorded from within the workings at Dolaucothi, as opposed to the general neighbourhood of the mine.

The purpose of the following pages is to study the problem of debt in Rome of the Ciceronian age. A part of this argument will be uncontroversial or at least familiar; that is, the way in which Roman politicians lived in prolonged states of indebtedness. The rest of the argument will be frankly more speculative; it will suggest that Caesar's arrival in Rome in 49 B.C. provoked a crisis that was in some degree inevitable; but that Caesar in consequence undertook certain remedial measures that were of an importance for the future developments of Roman law.

This strange poem, preserved as part of the miscellaneous collection which Scaliger named Appendix Vergiliana, is interesting from more than one point of view. But if we want to understand it and form an idea of its background, we must first clear up some points of detail and also, where it is necessary, examine the readings of our text, based as it is on manuscripts whose quality is not all that we might wish. Since for this initial section a separation of the major points from the minor ones has not proved feasible, my comments will simply follow the order of the lines.

Our sources for the constitutional settlement and division of the provinces in 27 B.C., and the modification of the settlement in 23 B.C., are notoriously brief and inadequate. Neither Augustus in the Res Gestae nor Velleius Paterculus mentions the provincial aspects of either settlement. The earliest source is Strabo (840): ‘(Caesar) δίχα διεῖλε πᾶσαν τὴν χώραν καὶ τὴν μὲν ἀπέδειξεν ἑαυτῷ τὴν δὲ τῷ δήμῳ (military provinces for himself, peaceful ones for the People)…ἑκατέραν δὲ τὴν μερίδα εἰς ἐπαρχίας διένειμε πλείους, ὡν αἵ μὲν καλοῦνται Καίσαρος, αἵ δὲ τοῦ δήμου. καὶ εἰς μὲν τὰς Καίσαρος ἡγεμόνας καὶδιοικητὰς Καῖσαρ πέμπει, διαιρѽν ἄλλοτε ἄλλως τὰς χώρας…εἰς δὲ τὰς δημοσίας ὁ δῆμος στρατηγοὺς ἤ ὑπάτους…(list of public provinces)…τὰς δὲ ἄλλας ἐπαρχίας ἔχει Καῖσαρ, ὧν εἰς ἃς μὲν πέμπει τοὺς ἐπιμελησομένους ὑπατικοὺς ἄνδρας,εἰς ἃς δὲ στρατηγικούς, εἰς ἃς δὲ καὶ ἱππικούς…’Then there is Suetonius (Div. Aug. 47) : ‘provincias validiores et quas annuis magistratuum imperiis regi nec facile nec tutum erat, ipse suscepit, ceteras proconsulibus sortito permisit.’ Finally there is the account in Cassius Dio (LIII, 12, 2–3): ‘τὴν μὲν φροντίδα τήν τε προστασίαν τѽν κοινѽν πᾶσαν ὡς καὶ ἐπιμελείας τινòς δεομένων ὑπεδέξατο, οὔτε δὲ πάντων αὐτòς τѽν ἐθνѽν ἄρξειν, οὔθ' ὅσων ἄν ἄρξῃ, διὰ παντòς τοῦτο ποιήσειν ἔφη, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν ἀσθενέστερα ὡς καὶ εἰρηναϊα καὶ ἀπόλεμα ἀπέδωκε, τὰ δὲ ἰσχυρότερα … κατέσχε, λόγῳ μὲν ὅπως ἡ μὲν γερουσία ἀδεѽς τὰ κάλλιστα τῆς ἀρχῆς καρπῷτο….’

These are the only accounts of the division of the provinces in 27. For the settlement of 23 our evidence is even poorer, a single sentence in Cassius Dio (LIII, 32, 5) ‘… τήν τε ἀρχὴν τὴν ἀνθύπατον ἐσαεἱ καθάπαξ ἔχειν ὥστε μήτε ἐν τῇ ἐσόδῳ τῇ εἴσῳ τοῦ πωμηρίου κατατίθεσθαι αὐτὴν μήτ' αὕθις ἀνανεοῦσθαι, καὶ ἐν τῷ ὑπηκόῳ τὸ πλεϊον τѽν ἑκασταχόθι ἀρχόνων ἰσχύειν ἐπέτρεψεν’.

The paucity of the sources—combined with the fact that they are mainly in Greek—has led to insoluble problems about how Augustus' position was described at the time, or (alternatively) what the nature of his imperium vis à vis the provinces was. None the less there is a fair consensus of opinion about the division of the provinces itself, and the nature of the administrative pattern which it produced. This can be summarized as follows:

Augustus undertook the administration of a large provincia, comprising Spain, Gaul and Syria, for a period of ten years, possibly with proconsular authority. He governed these provinces through legati appointed by, and responsible to, himself. The other provinces were governed by pro-magistrates responsible to the Senate. Down to 23 Augustus was also consul. In 23, while retaining his provincia, he abandoned the consulate and accepted imperium mains, which gave him superior authority to pro-magistrates, and enabled him to intervene outside his provincia when necessary. In normal circumstances, however, control of the provinces was divided between the Emperor and the Senate.

The aim of this article is to challenge a theory which is current about the operation of criminal appeal under the Principate. Since the important essays of Professor Jones on the subject, it has been commonly accepted that there were two separate and distinct systems of appeal in the period from Augustus to the Severans. In the first century, appeal, provocatio, was lodged before trial. The judge did not try the case at all, but at most made a preliminary investigation. By the reign of Hadrian, a new system, appellatio, has supplanted the old one. Appeal is now after sentence.

In Deuteronomy Rabba Ki Teze section 2, (ed. S. Liebermann, p. 103) we read the following passage: ‘R. Abba b. Kahana said: …. It is like unto a king who hired for himself workers and put them into his orchard, without revealing to them the wages for looking after the orchard, so that they should not pay no attention to that for which they would be paid little and concern themselves only with that for which they would be paid much. In the evening he called for each of them. He said to the first, “Under which tree did you work ?” The worker replied, “Under the pepper-tree.” “The rate for this one is one gold piece (= aureus),” [said the King]. He called to the second and asked him, “Beneath which tree did you work ?” “Under that one,” he replied. He (the King) said, “This is a perach-lavan tree [literally, a white-flower tree], and the rate for it is half a gold piece.” He called the last one and said to him, “Under which tree did you work ?” “Under this one,” he answered. “It is an olive-tree, and its rate is two hundred mana.”’

Since in this parable we begin with one gold piece and then go down to half a gold piece it would appear likely that the final sum mentioned is a quarter of a gold piece. If this albeit hypothetical supposition be accepted then it follows that ¼ aureus = 200 mana, ∴ 1 aureus = 800 mana.